Media Weekly - Face off

Ultimately, we are not peaceful people. The media love writing about, and we love reading about, a good old confrontation. And we’ve had plenty this week.

A messy celebrity divorce is one of the media’s favourite confrontations to cover. When news broke that Katie was leaving Tom, the media went into a frenzy. Five sidebars of the Daily Mail were dedicated to the story and thousands of media outlets were unable to contain themselves about the fact that Suri was eating ice cream. But, after much titillation, Tom and Kate have come to an ‘amicable agreement’. There is a grudging acceptance that this is the happiest outcome for the parties concerned, but the Daily Telegraph summed up the disappointment of the damp divorce squib... Fair play to Katie. For two weeks, she played the media like a violin, using its uncontained desire for exposés to scare the other side so much that they gave into her demands. But will the media ever find out what Katie had on Tom to make him cave so easily?

Speaking of relationships which were never quite believable in the first place, the Coalition Government has had quite a time of it. 91 Tory MPs staged the largest rebellion of the parliament to vote against the House of Lords reform bill. Cameron has had a bit of a battering for not being in control of his party. But, perhaps a bit like Miss Katie Holmes, is he playing a canny game, and pretending to do one thing when he is in fact trying to do something else?

In a week where Lords Reform dominated the world of UK politics, Anne Marie Morris found an effective way of getting herself noticed. As she talked passionately about educational reform, she hit what Guido Fawkes refers to as ‘shouty crackers’ form, while waving a broken arm about as if she was spoiling for a fight. This MP, who was elected two years ago, has caught the attention of the House and the country, and was trending within minutes. Perhaps she could be deployed to help deter undesirables from the Olympics?

As a complete aside, and nothing to do with this conflict and confrontation theme, over the last few months I have been enjoying a number of simple tools from BBC News Online. The tools help you to work out where you fall in the context of world averages, across a number of levels. The latest from this week helps you work out how fat are you compared to everyone else in the world? Totally unscientific, but Friday fun nonetheless.